The areas of protection of abstractions, as well as the rules of restrictions on use, financial compensations, are established according to the article 19 of WHG (German Federal Water Act).  Some rules and instructions are given, regarding the delimitation and the size of the areas of protection of abstractions in the guidelines of practices written by DVGW: « Guidelines for Drinking Water Protection Areas », in 1995.

The following definitions can be found in the report entitled

Protection of the whole catchments providing drinking water - Study of practices in Europe, Siauve S., Amorsi N. giving a lot of answers concerning these topics, and in the book of the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain pubslihed in 2003

« Perímetros de protección para captaciones de agua subterránea destinada al consume humano. Metodología y aplicación al territorio », Martínez Navarrete C. et García García Á.

• Zone I : this area called « Well Field Protection Zone » aims to protect the abstraction facilities as well as their immediate environment from impurities and contamination. This zone has a diameter of at least 10 m around a well, 20 m for upstream sources of groundwater and 30 m for karstic groundwater.
• Zone II : this zone, "Narrow Protection Zone" aims to prevent contamination by pathogenic bacteria and viruses. The delimitation of this zone is linked to the transfer time of pollutions until the resource: it extends from the limit of the zone I to a line from which the groundwater used takes less than 50 days to reach the catchment. The limit must be located at least 100 m from the extraction point
• Zone III : this « Wide Protection zone » concerns the fight against long-term and long-range contamination, like chemical or radioactive pollution, which is not or not easily biodegradable. This area extends from the boundary of Zone II to the catchment area’s boundary. If the catchment area is very extensive (more than 2 km around the extraction point) this zone can be subdivided into two zones: zone IIIA (within a radius of 2 km around the extraction point) and zone IIIB (beyond this radius of 2 km), which have different levels of restriction in terms of land use.

 

Diagram of the different catchment protection zones in Germany. Extract of: German Lebanese Technical Cooperation Project Protection Jeita Spring

A map showing the protection zones for drinking water abstractions is available here for Germany:

https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/publikationen/water-resource-management-in-germany-part-1

For Berlin, abstraction protection zones are defined according to the following table:

 

Abstractions protection areas in Berlin. Extract from the website of the council of the Department of Housing and Urban Development

 

Fore more details :

• http://www.bvsde.paho.org/bvsacd/cd59/protecting/sect4-17.pdf
• Zhu Y, Balke K-D. Groundwater protection: What can we learn from Germany? Journal of Zhejiang University Science B. 2008;9(3):227-231. doi:10.1631/jzus.B0710639 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2266878/